Why It's Time for the Voters to Fire President Obama

By Ed Pozzuoli

When you really think about economic growth, what first might appear mysterious on the surface quickly becomes easy to understand. Economic growth results from the hard-wired desire of the individual to produce in order to consume. We all pursue our individual economic specialties, and then we exchange the fruits of our labor for all the things – cars, houses, clothes, food – that we don’t specialize in producing.

Considering economic growth and politicians, the elected among us frequently distort our ability to produce. The United States was founded with a healthy skepticism of governmental involvement in our economy, and today there remains a deep-rooted understanding that politicians – irrespective of party affiliation – produce little while erecting barriers to economic growth. Unless they’re talking about making us more free, odds are they’re not doing anything to enhance our prosperity.

We should certainly question any politician of any ideology promising us the world, and certain politicians are truly oblivious to their ability to damage our economic chances. Barack Obama is that kind of politician, and our economy truly can’t suffer another four years of his misrule.

First up, jobs. The stated unemployment rate is over 8%. However, that is only half the story. According to the Department of Labor, when you include discouraged workers who have stopped looking but still want to work, the real unemployment rate is actually around 15%. 15% unemployment from the President who claims to be for the “little guy”. Well, a lot of ‘little guys” are without jobs. An example of this Administration putting politics above economic growth is its blocking construction of the Keystone Pipeline. Even with 15% real unemployment the environmental lobby trumped jobs.

The desire of an individual to produce is offset by the desire of the same individual to survive. Hence, uncertainty in the business environment makes businesses hesitate to grow or increase production—it’s survival over risk and production. Without increased production from business, there is no job creation. Today, businesses have very real fears over higher taxes and increased government regulation.

Considering taxes, President Obama has made plain that he intends to let the 2003 tax cuts on income and capital gains lapse. Put plainly, the president intends to raise the costs of work and investment at a time when our gasping economy needs a great deal more of both. Obama naively believes that we can achieve more job creation and productive work by virtue of raising the penalty on both.

Of course Obama would have us believe that his calls for higher taxes are those of a responsible leader, one eager to reduce the deficit burden on the people. But if Obama genuinely cared about deficits then it’s certainly true that our deficit burden under him wouldn’t have eclipsed that of all of his predecessors combined.

After that, implicit in Obama’s clamor for more taxes is the false presumption that our budget deficits are a function of a lack of revenue. In fact, and as evidenced by federal revenues almost annually climbing to record levels, we don’t have a funding problem, rather we have a federal government that is spending way too much; federal spending placing a heavy burden on an economy starving for funds to be used for investment in the real economy.

On the regulation front, despite bureaucrats nearly always being caught unaware of problems brewing in the sectors they are supposed to oversee, Obama wants to give them even more power and more money to inhibit the very profit motive that attracts investment, and with such investment, the creation of jobs. In his first term, Obama has sought to increase federal oversight over energy, healthcare and financial services, at which point we might shudder at the thought of what he would seek to regulate in a second term absent an electorate to answer to in 2016. On its own, Obamacare points to a most expansive set of new regulations waiting to be dropped on every doorstep of every business with a loud thud.

Importantly, voters have a choice. Though voters should, as mentioned, always be skeptical of any politician no matter the party affiliation, Mitt Romney offers them a reversal of an Obama economic program that has done so much damage to our hopes and dreams and the hopes and dreams of future generations. Romney is the true change, and here’s why.

Romney promises to bring certainty to the business community. His background and history should be celebrated as it provides real and sustainable achievement in job creation. His background is proof that he understands that allowing investment to find its most productive and best use via the marketplace as opposed to government mandate will do the most to grow our economy and create new jobs. Talking of government mandate, Romney promises to energetically seek Obamacare’s repeal given his belief that states are necessary laboratories of ideas, and that states are where different healthcare concepts should be pursued.

With respect to taxes, Romney has proposed a 20% across the board reduction of federal income taxes on all income levels. For reducing the price of work, Romney’s taxation policies will generate a lot more productivity at a time that it’s sorely needed — sorely needed to produce jobs.

In terms of regulation, Romney promises to roll back Obama’s burdens placed on healthcare, finance and energy that have so far amounted to profit-shrinking strangulation. Romney seems to understand that the free markets, comprised of you and me, are the best regulators of all.

By providing greater certainty with a clear tax and regulatory approach, Romney will unshackle businesses to grow, not just survive.

When Obama entered office nearly four years ago, he confidently proclaimed that he needed three years to fix all that ails what was a struggling economy. Almost at the end of his four-year term, Obama’s alleged solutions have the U.S. economy further in the same ditch he found it in. Having failed to live up to the benchmarks he set, it’s time for voters to fire our 44th president in order to limit the certain future damage that another four years of Obama would bring.

Ed Pozzuoli is the President of the law firm Tripp Scott in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Most recently, he served as a campaign advisor to Ambassador Jon Huntsman during the 2012 Republican Primaries.

Fresh

An op-ed by Tripp Scott's Douglas Reynolds and Henny Shomar. As published in the DBR.

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